


Mistlock

by KarkaHatchlings



Series: Guild Wars 2 Interstitial [5]
Category: Guild Wars 2 (Video Game), Guild Wars Series (Video Games)
Genre: Adventure, Conversations, Gen, Mystery, Slice of Life, Speculation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-09
Updated: 2018-05-09
Packaged: 2019-05-04 13:29:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14594055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KarkaHatchlings/pseuds/KarkaHatchlings
Summary: An asura and a human emerge from fractals, speculating on their significance in the Mistlock Observatory.





	Mistlock

Below the rim of the observatory, the Mists drifted serenely in their slow swirl, the pockets of momentary reality forming from it left as nothing more than suggestive shapes in obscuring clouds.  Charter peered down, one toe hanging over the edge of the stone platform, before peeling off his headgear and letting it swing by the chin strap in his hand. Sweat, not just from the stifling heat inside the helmet, beaded his brow and prickled as it slid down the back of his neck.  His knees still shaky from the ordeal beyond the gate, he took a careful step away from the brink and sat down. The armored cloak he was wearing bunched under him uncomfortably.

Arms draped wearily over knees, he stared out into the middle distance almost blankly, heedless of the angry stamp of Pleek’s approach.  The asura reached the edge of the platform and tore off her own helmet with an angry, wordless cry, then hurled it as far as she could out into the emptiness.  Moments later the piece of armor crashed down onto the other side of the platform as if dropped from a great height. The bang and clatter drew a startled curse from someone where the rest of the group was huddled near the observatory krewe’s repair golem.

Both spared a glance for the dented helm when it rolled to a rocking stop on the rough stone.  "It's probably not actually mine," hissed the asura venomously, flopping down to sit next to Charter.

"It's hard to tell what's real," the human's agreement was bleak as he eyed a curl of mist that had extended up from the undifferentiated mass.

The pair sat wordless for a moment, the human shivering once from what seemed like an errant breeze in the still air, pulling warmth away from him as the sweat on his scalp dried.  Coughing into a hand, he risked a glance at Pleek. “I don’t think you have anything to worry about,” he offered quietly, pitched to keep the reassurance between them, “we both know nothing’s happened to Rata Sum.”

“Oh, I know,” the asura replied, a bit too fast for that to be strictly true.  She still had College and family there, if not krewe.

Arms tightly folded, she hesitated, the rest of her words catching in her throat as a tiny growl before they finally spilled out.  “But this is the Mists. It could be the future,” she was just as hushed as the human, as if saying it louder would make what they'd seen real, “those marks of golems...”  Unwilling to continue, she let the suggestion hang in the air.

"It doesn't mean anything," the human insisted stubbornly, "they weren't necessarily based on anything recent."

"What do you know, anyway?" Pleek's voice got away from her, erupting loud enough that the rest of the platform had to pretend they didn't hear, "all golems look the same to you!"

"I know nothing like that happens without warning," as if to compensate for her, Charter leaned over and spoke even more softly, just a whisper over the omnipresent hum of the Mist gates, "you showed me Luminates Plant; your people are even working on new cities."

"Nothing like that happens without warning?" a contemptuous swipe of her claws through the air showed all the regard she gave his objection, "sort of like the Searing?  The Foefire?"

Stiffening, he withdrew, seeming to fold in on himself even as he sat up straighter.  "Glitch, I'm sorry," muttered the asura, lowering her voice, “I didn't..." Mean to lose her temper?  Want to make him upset? She didn't know. The hand she’d been dismissive with earlier now scratched at her breastplate.

"Do," Pleek ventured after a moment, touching the human's arm to try to bridge the deepening gap, "you want to talk about that?"

Charter shook his head, looking down at the helmet cradled between his knees.  The dark eyepieces of the rough iron-colored dredge gear stared back silently. "There's nothing to talk about," he said obstinately, "it happened already.  It's over."

"And that makes it worse," exasperation tinged her voice when she leapt on his comment, "we don't know if the Rata... 'fractal' is real.  What we saw in Ascalon probably was." For lack of a better word, she adopted the terminology of the observatory krewe. They were the experts, not her.  So far.

"Your family had already fled, right?"  At the mention of his distant ancestors, Charter nodded.

"Moved to the Ascalon Settlement after the Searing," he confirmed.

"Well, then at least you know you didn't kill any of them," Pleek reasoned, pushing at his arm in emphasis, "it was a battle, just like fighting ghosts in Ashford.  They didn't know what they were doing, and you had to do what you had to do. We all did, to get out alive."

"I just worry," Charter finally said in melancholy speculation, "if it was something we, or whoever we were supposed to be in that battle, did that mattered in what happened back then."

"And even if it was, there was nothing you could do about it because it had already happened!" chuckled the asura with a self-satisfied flick of her long ears, "asura learn that the very first year in Metamystics.  Or, at least my college does. Don't listen to the nonsense Dynamics and Synergetics spew on temporal mechanics."

Pleek paused, returning to her original train of thought, one claw held high in emphasis, "anyway, the point is still that we fought our way clear and we're still here, now.  That's the best we can hope for."

"Besides, it could be that all of this sprang from the subconscious of the people experiencing it," she jerked her head toward the others, shaking out her braids.  Garbrech stood apart and impassive, his armor having remained inviolate against the dangers in the Mists, "that would explain the world frozen by the Svanir."

"I was supposed to be reassuring you," Charter pulled a wry grimace, nudging her back with his elbow.

Pleek's scowl was playful for once.  "Try harder next time." Nevermind that her earlier retort had caused the breach.

"And," she continued, covering that twinge of remorse, "you look ridiculous in that getup.  Change back into your coat and hat."

Smiling more easily, Charter picked up the helmet and faced it to her.  "It keeps my face intact," ignoring her muttered comment about how it might look better rearranged, he put it on the platform behind him.

"I wasn't going to say anything," he grinned, "but since we're on the subject, you look better as an asura than a charr."

This time the scowl was genuine.  "We're never going to talk about that again."

Both of them sat in silence once again, looking out over endlessly drifting vista, taking in the strange, half-glimpsed fragments of time near enough to see.  Only a fraction of it was recognizable, the broken shape of a wall or the twisted curl of a tree trunk dredging up something half remembered. Once, Pleek started to point, to call the human's attention to what she’d spotted, but in the end chose not to disturb the shared quiet.

"We've had enough, children.  Let's get going," announced Chalice, her voice brazen and clear as ever, yet somehow still dwarfed by the immensity of the Mists around the observatory.  She pointed a mailed gauntlet at the gate back to Lion's Arch imperiously before taking the first steps in that direction.

With a grunt, Charter stood and then offered a hand to Pleek to help her up.  As usual, it was ignored. Fishing their helmets off of the ground, he watched the backs of the others vanish into the portal.  "The Consortium is never going to fix this gate, you know," he said with a resigned chuckle, "they probably don't know how."

Pleek's contempt for the trading company was obvious in the curl of her lip.  "Yeah, we're going to have to keep taking the ship."

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted in /gw2g/.
> 
> Events referenced here correspond to in-game events: Exploration of the Fractals of the Mists. Note that more recent in-game explanation of the fractals has since invalidated earlier theories paraphrased here. Additionally, the Consortium finally did fix the Lion's Arch/Southsun Cove asura gate.


End file.
